Rook Lane Blog

Steve Clarkson – Metaphysica

Posted on December 13, 2012

Steve Clarkson and Richard Falle are exhibiting together at Rook Lane Chapel next spring in a self-curated exhibition entitled Metaphysica. Both artists work with technology to produce two and three dimensional prints. Their work shares a hyper-real, absurd quality, making it hard to tell if the objects on display have been created by man or machine.

Steve Clarkson’s sculptures start from a point of the digitisation of an object, with the data then being used to draw an image which is at once acutely precise and strangely otherworldly:

“My artworks require an initial source of information that is produced through either CT or 3D laser scanning. The digital information is the starting point for each piece and the artworks are evidence of selectively using data to create images that provoke exploration. The objects I use are viewed in transparency, as if x-rayed, revealing all aspects both interior and exterior.”

In what other context would you see an everyday object with its outsides exposed, and on display with its insides? Steve’s piece “Fiat 500” shows a car in this way. He has also scanned a Lambretta motorcycle. Both these images float above their plinths – the layers of 2d scanning merging together to form the illusion of a solid object. The third piece in this series, is a scanned human head. This too floats like a ghost, or a brain in a tank. There is something visceral about all this, and somewhat ghoulish: Inside-out vehicles and human appendages give rise to motorway accidents and post mortems.

But it is this ghostly-ness, caused by the x-ray effect, which makes Steve Clarkson’s work so captivating. The prints of the Fiat are rendered in neon orange, as if the car is etched in the light from its own headlights. This is something intrinsic to the scanning process, as carried out by Advanced Simtech, who Steve worked with to realise this project. Advacnced Simtech are a commercial 3D scanning company that typically prepares 3D models of houses, crime scene investigations and re-enactments of vehicle collisions.

There is something compelling about images drawn in such a precise and mechanical way. Steve’s work is likely to attract print-lovers and technology buffs alike. The Metaphysica exhibition plays with the possibilities of the man-made image – how can something so real look so unreal?

Steve Clarkson’s work is featured in Metaphysica, an exhibition of two and three dimensional print which launches on Friday March 29th with a private view from 6pm – 9pm.